Another picture that tells a story or a story that you could tell.  This crack in the ice was from a mountain lake.  The ice is about 30 inches thick and the lake is about half a mile across.  The crack is roughly eighteen inches deep.  It is mid March.  This is a lake where a lot of local people gather to run snowmobiles and the like.  They drive their trucks down onto the ice to unload the snowmobiles then leave them until everyone is tired and it is time to go home.

If there are five families each with their own truck and two snowmobiles and four members in each family and it is a nice sunny day – what will happen?   How much weight would it take to make something happen?  Are cracks more dangerous in one part of the lake than another?  Many possibilities, lots to find out.

Write the story of what happened that day –  Tell what it sounded like, what it felt like, what it looked like that day.  Make sure there is a beginning, middle and an end and that at least one character develops and grows as a result of the experience.

By Blynne Froke, Target® Iditarod Teacher on the Trail™ Finalist